Building a Strong Facebook Presence for Your Shop

Jenna Gross, CMO of marketing firm Moving Targets, shares some tips on building your brand with a well-rounded Facebook page.

As the largest social network in the world with over 2 billion monthly users, having a good business presence on Facebook is a vital marketing tool.

"Facebook is right up there with how important a website is for a brand," Jenna Gross, CMO of marketing firm Moving Targets says. "People expect you to have a website, they now expect you to have a facebook page."

Your main audience is most likely your existing customers and potential customers who are “shopping” for auto services. With the new Facebook algorithm, creating interactive content for both of those audience is especially important. Your followers will see content that promotes conversations and interactions, while promotional posts may become less and less visible without paid promotion.

Ratchet+Wrench spoke with Gross on improving customer communication through the Facebook Messenger app in our February issue. She also gave several tips on how to build your brand with a successful Facebook page, which we’ve included below.

Keep things consistent:

When Gross begins working with new Facebook accounts at Moving Targets, one thing she often sees is a lack of consistency. Most of the shops she works with are independent shops that don’t view Facebook as a market priority.

“We see sometimes that people tried doing social media, and didn’t see definitive results so they stopped doing it,” she says.

She advises to have a designated person who constantly posts on your page, while making sure to focus on the quality of your content.

“It’s better to post two to three times per week and provide quality than throwing in a few filler posts just to hit post counts,” she says.

Appreciate your audience:

For those accounts that do post consistently, Gross says she often sees accounts that just push sales with no regards for building a relationship with the audience.

The general rule she says, is to focus on organic content, and make your page information based and resource based. You can use your page to share shop news and information, but it’s best to do this in a way that spins a value to your customers.

Gross maintains that you should fit with the 80-20 model, which means making just 20 percent of your content promotional, and 80 percent of your content focused on interesting, sharable content. That 20 percent can include any big promotions or sale your business offers, while the 80 percent could be blog posts or basic advice on vehicle maintenance.

Alex Van Abbema is the staff writer for 10 Missions Media, where he contributes to the in-depth reporting for Ratchet+Wrench.